Lost in the Tale
by sappy3
Summary: Severus and Hermione find themselves in the Beauty and the Beast fairytale. Answer to the Lost in a Book Challenge.
1. Prologue – Scene of the Crime

**Lost in the Tale**

Prologue – Scene of the Crime

Hermione felt the excitement of the moment warring with the doubts and worries that plagued her since yesterday morning. In a few short moments she would apprehend the last known Death Eater walking freely on British soil and release her best friend Harry from his final bond with the past to live his life as he pleased. She knew Harry would not thank her for this but she wouldn't let that stop her. If he faced Snape and killed him, he could end up in Azkaban. And she didn't think Harry's attitude toward Snape was healthy. Besides, she could do this on her own. She was the one who found the clues to his hidey-hole, wasn't she? And she could capture him without Harry at the front. Harry wasn't the only one who could 'do stuff' she thought.

Entering the dismal house that once belonged to Snape she took a nervous breath as she glanced around. It was still a mess from the last search they gave it a year ago and musty from leaking rains. It was a shame really, to let all those wonderful books Snape gathered over years and covered his walls with go to waste. But the Ministry didn't like people messing around with dead or missing people's stuff. They took the proverb 'A man's home is his castle' very seriously.

That was fortunate now that she knew where he was. What a perfect idea. Hiding in a Book! She of all people should have figured it out.

There was no one to interfere. She made certain sure that Harry (and for that matter Ron, who was sure to inform him double quick if he got a squeak of this) was otherwise occupied. The Quidditch bet was still, as always, a sure bet.

Looking at the dump otherwise known as Spinner's End, she was taken aback once again by the inconceivable contradiction between this house and the man she knew all her teen-days as Professor Snape. How could such an elegant, well-spoken aristocratic Sorcerer like her former Potions' Professor come from such a run-down hovel of almost Dickensian mundaneness? Perhaps it had been overcompensation for his childhood that she saw in his adult guise but either way, as she well knew, the man was evil through and through.

She wasn't here to understand him; she was here to get him. It was vital that it would be her and not either of her friends, especially Harry, that caught him. The single-minded obsession Harry developed about Snape since Headmaster Dunbledore's murder was dangerous and unhealthy in her not so humble opinion. She was afraid that Harry would seek his death or worse in his search for revenge for all the hurts he suffered and she didn't want him to suffer the consequences of such rashness.

Taking a calming breath, Hermione drew her wand and started going through the countless books filling every hole and cranny in the room.

At first she was drawn to the promising titles of Dark Arts' tomes such as 'Life through Death', 'Necronomicon' or 'Darkest Transfigurations' but they were just run of the mill finger-biting books. She tried Transfiguration books, figuring he'd have to cast some nifty transfigurations to hide in a book but there was nothing there either. Book after book was searched as the windows grew darker and her eyes blurry, but to no avail.

Could she have been wrong? She was so sure when the idea struck her, the clues she found in the journals left in his rooms at Hogwarts, vague though they were, couldn't have been wrong. Racking her brains for new ideas she lifted her wand and decided there must be some enchantment hiding the book she was looking for. Gripping her wand forcefully, she started spinning on her heals and shouting "I, Hermione Granger, command you to reveal yourself!" There was a tremor and encouraged, Hermione repeated her performance a second and then a third time.

With a high piercing whistle that deafened Hermione momentarily, the enchantment broke.

Smiling broadly, she clasped her hands above her head and jumped up and down a few time. She did it! She bested her stern, stingy Professor in a duel of Charms.

Looking around, she started going over the stacks again, looking for any book that looked unfamiliar. Why hadn't she catalogued them? She was Hermione Granger for crying out loud. She wondered whether the book will turn out to be a diary, like Riddle's Diary from their second year. Well, there was only one way to find out – buckle down and look.

Some of the books looked unfamiliar. Surely there was no 'Book of Kicks and Cuffs' on the third shelf before? Or how about the 'Subtle Potions for Brats, Prats, Rats and Busybodies'? Wrinkling her forehead Hermione shook her head. She probably didn't notice these books before. They were certainly not the exotic hiding place that her evil yet brilliant former professor was using. They were just odd books. Going painstakingly through the entire library again she almost missed the little book hidden behind a stack of household Cleaning Charms' books. At first glance it looked like a well read fairy-tales book of unassuming Muggle origins but from the moment she saw it she was sure this was the one. Its inconspicuous location, its childish subject in the midst of this mature and oft grim collection, its fictional nature, all were indisputable proofs, in her mind, that she's been right all along and this was the place where Snape was hiding.

Floating it to the table she considered it carefully. The logical thing to do was hand it over to her superiors in the Ministry of Magic and not 'tickle a sleeping dragon' herself as it were. But what if they didn't believe her that this was more than a book? What if they laughed at her over-imaginativeness and thought she were a fool? The unassuming oh, so Mugglish cover of the book mocked her to her core.

Gripping her wand tightly, she used it to nudge the book open, ready for anything to jump at her out of it. There was nothing there. Nothing that is, save for page after page of silly Muggle fairytales. The well worn pages were stained and sellotaped.

How could this be? She had been so sure. But wait. Could those old food-stains be carefully disguised deadly potions inscribing sinister Runes on the innocent-looking pages? Pointing her wand excitedly at some of the stains she murmured a revealing spell. The first turned out to be ketchup, the second Earl Grey and the rest no better. One looked at first very promising, having a complex list of ingredients, half of them even she did not recognize but after running an exhaustive series of tests it turned out to be no more than the leftovers of a Muggle shampoo.

It was useless. The book was obviously just the boring Muggle thing it seemed to be. She had no business with it. She should return it to its place and forget she ever saw it. Living in a book indeed. About to pick it up, she stopped suddenly, trembling all over.

The book was trying to make her forget about it. She had almost succumbed to it. Standing back, she started firing hex after hex at it, trying to crack the illusions and protections surrounding it. She suppressed a yawn. Damn, but she was starting to feel sleepy. She pinched herself hard. She was going to succeed no matter what.

Just then, a particularly obscure and powerful Hidden Face Counter-Curse finally seemed to have an effect.

In the middle of a page, a murky image started to surface. She could see lots of books in a small room at the center of which stood a young woman pointing her wand at an open book. Beside her stood a shadowy figure with an open, fuming book in his hands. Grinning widely, she jabbed her wand into the half-open Portal and willed it open with all her might.

She didn't notice the shadowy figure in the image discarding his copy of the 'Subtle Potions for Brats, Prats, Rats and Busybodies' book and instead hurling the Books of Kicks and Cuffs at the young woman beside him. Neither did she take notice of the whoosh as the real 'Book of Kicks and Cuffs' hurled towards her head.

With a loud smack it hit her on the back of her head just as, with a malicious jab, she threw the Portal wide open. Book and woman both fell without resistance into the image.

The ill-mannered book was not done yet. With a vicious flutter of its pages, it hurled toward the unprepared Severus Snape. With a loud crack it smacked through his half-raised wand, breaking it to smithereens, and straight into his unprotected forehead, on which it cracked and moved no more.

The gathered mass and magic tucked into the little fairy-tale book couldn't be contained any longer. Shafts of lights radiated from it, setting the room around it on fire. The Broken 'Book of Kicks and Cuffs', bloody now from its impact with Severus Snape's forehead and Hermione's wand flew out of the closing Portal, repelled by its magic (being powerful Magical Objects themselves.) As Dark, powerful tomes caught fire, explosions started to occur. The room shook and then blew apart.

The Book of Fairy-Tales, still open to the title page of Beauty and the Beast, hurled out the blown door and landed in the yard of a nearby house.

Of Spinner's End, nothing remained but char and ashes. When Harry, along with the Aurors came on the scene, all they found were traces of the Death Eater murderer's blood and pieces of Hermione Granger's broken wand. Harry was grief-stricken and inconsolable. Why wasn't he there? Why? Now his friend was dead. Snape's death wasn't worth her life.


	2. Chapter 1  Murky Beginnings

Warning: this chapter contains a character's death.

Chapter One – Murky Beginnings

Sarah wandered into the back garden feeling full. She made a face. When she was grown up she wouldn't force anybody to eat beans and sausage. She wouldn't be that mean. Everybody was still milling around the burned house at Spinner's End. Sarah's nose wrinkled. The whole neighbourhood stank from the fire now. She could see Jeremiah and Millie there. Jeremiah would probably try to say this proved the house was really haunted. Sarah snorted. She knew the truth. Vagrants had found out that the house was deserted and camped there on a regular basis. She saw them sneaking in from time to time trying to look like they had any business there. One of them probably wasn't careful and set the whole place on fire. Serves him right.

Father said it was a gas explosion. He heard it from the authorities. He told mother anybody who still used gas after all the disasters last year was completely bonkers. In Sarah's opinion, the authorities called accidents gas explosions so they wouldn't have to do any investigating. Mother thought so too. Why would they keep an abandoned house connected to the gas? It was silly. But father told Northern Gas to buzz off and bought a coal stove. He didn't trust them any.

She thought she remembered the owner of the 'haunted' house. A black haired fellow, tall and thin with a pasty, angry face. He was interesting and mysterious, unlike Jeremiah's silly ghosts and bogeys. Didn't go out much and was seldom there. But she hasn't seen him in over a year. He was probably gone. Dead, or moved somewhere.

Sarah climbed her oak. There wouldn't be any fire stink up there. It was much better than that old house. It was magical with life and beauty, not spookiness and abandonment. And up there she could read and not have to listen to Jeremiah's ramblings. She wanted to start The Count of Monte Cristo again. She wondered if the school suspected what happened to it, not that there was anybody there now that it was summer.

Suddenly her hand felt something. Parting the leaves she discovered a tatty old book lodged in a tree branch. Delighted, she pulled it to her. Now here was good magic. Settling in her secret spot, surrounded by green leaves from all sides, she examined her find.

It was an old fairy-tales book. When she opened the cover, pages started falling out of it in big chunks. She tried to catch them but at her touch they turned to dust and vanished. All that remained of the book, she saw, was the Beauty and the Beast tale. She touched the pages, feather-light, fearing that they too would vanish away, but they were all right. Sarah smiled. She hasn't read this story in years.

Placing the book on her knees she started reading.

**O**_nce upon a time, there lived a Prince. He did not have much, for his kingdom was small and its lands poor, but he had a good mind and a true heart. One day he met a princess from the neighbouring kingdom. The princess was beautiful and kindly and the Prince fell in love with her. The princess liked him well enough but when he asked for her hand, the princess refused him. She told him she couldn't marry him because, although he was a Prince, he was poor and ugly. Surely, the Prince argued, with his clever mind he could gain riches enough to satisfy her? He vowed that all that he had and all that he will ever have would hers. But the princess refused him again. Perhaps one day, she told him, he wouldn't be poor, but he will always be too ugly to be her husband. So saying, the princess left him and soon after married another prince, one that was rich and handsome enough for her tastes._

_Broken hearted, the Prince returned to his castle and __swore never to love again. Many years he lived alone in his castle with only a few faithful servants to serve him. Though he became wise and powerful he did not find happiness, for his heart never stopped longing for the one he lost._

_Among the Prince's__ servants there was an envious and knavish fellow called Cuff who, wishing to have the Prince's castle for himself, plotted to get rid of him. One day, finding the Prince distracted, he hit his master with a cudgel, put a curse of forgetfulness on him, broke his magical sceptre to pieces and banished him into a distant land._

_~x~x~x~_

_Far away, i__n a cold and forbidding forest that stretched for many leagues, there lay hidden an enchanted castle, too lovely to behold, where winter never entered. Behind this castle grew a lovely garden where the loveliest and most fragrant flowers of the land grew. Loveliest of them all were the tall rose bushes at the heart of the garden._

_Dawn stole into the beautiful rose__ garden. Sleepy birds peeked from under their wings and cooed softly to greet the new day. In the grass below, a field-mouse raised his quivering snout timidly to test the day. Down the gravelled path strolled a monstrous Beast, half wolf, half pig, all teeth and bristles, walking on its two hind-legs in semblance of Man and took a gentle huff from the rose-bushes, sighing mightily. All was peaceful in the garden._

_Nearby, a__ naked man woke with a splitting headache and came inches from skewering himself on one of the lovely rose-bushes. Stifling a yell, he looked around him and spied the ghastly beast coming his way. Whispering "Werewolf!" in horrified panic, the man silently retreated until, with a crow of delight, he came across a tool-shed from which he nipped after short deliberation a heavy shovel._

_Hiding behind one o__f the bushes he waited for the beast to appear. And appear it did, hands clasped behind its back, a red rose behind its ear and smiling a very toothy little smile. With a yell, the man sprang forth and swung his shovel at its head with all his might. The Beast didn't have time to defend itself. A crunching sound filled the air and its head turned in an unnatural angle. The Beast fell to the ground, dead._

_The birds took flight, screeching__. The field-mouse ran to the other end of the garden and hid. The bushes rustled in the wind. Death has entered the garden._

_The man took a heavy breath and sat down on the path._

_Where was he? Who was that awful beast? He couldn't remember anything. His mind was a blank. Even his own name was lost to him. He stared at the ugly corpse beside him and retched. What was he to do? This day hasn't started well. He was in someone's garden, he was stark naked with only a stolen shovel to his name, he'd just killed some nameless beast and his head was killing him. He touched his forehead and found a goose-egg there. It bloody hurt._

_The B__east was probably someone's beloved pet, he thought. Or maybe even the gentle owner of the place, under a curse. Nah, not bloody likely. That Beast was malevolent. It would have torn him to pieces if he'd let it. If anyone tried to accuse him of killing it he'd bloody tell them it was bloody self-defence, nothing more and nothing less. Maybe he was the owner of this place. All he did was defend his property from dangerous beasts. That sounded better._

_Deciding not to take unnecessary risks, he hefted the shovel and__, sweating profusely, dug a deep pit. Dragging the Beast to it he shoved it in and covered it with dirt, finishing the job with handfuls of leaves and gravel to hide his handiwork._

_It was midmorning. __The naked man looked down on himself. He was all covered in dirt and sweat and bruised from his work. Down the path he went, not looking back, leaving the shovel where he found it. The rose bushes turned into peonies, then to an open meadow with Elder trees, touch-me-nots and primroses. In the middle tinkled a small stream lined with willows and myrtles and ending in a crystal-clear pond. The man hurried to the pond and washed himself in it until, at last, he felt clean. _

_Climbing to the top of a nearby hillock, he surveyed his surroundings. The garden stretched around him, beautiful and serene. Across the stream he could see orchards full of fruits and colo__ur. Behind him, in the direction the Beast came from, was a bright palace built in a rococo style. He noticed a tree-lined avenue leading out from its other side. It led into a misty coniferous forest that he could now see surrounded the grounds from all sides._

_Choosing a different path from the one he came from, he approached__ the palace. Glass doors in ornate metal frames opened into a mirror-lined ballroom with frescoed ceiling. Gathering his courage, he entered, his privates covered with held leaves, into the palace._

_T__he overdone Master Bedroom wasn't hard to find. The gilded closet was filled to the brim with spiffy suits of clothes in turquoise and sunny yellow colours. The man scowled. Who the devil would want to wear such travesties? Gritting his teeth angrily he admitted to himself that it was going to be him. He needed clothes and these were his only options. Turning his back on the mirror, he donned them. There was one thing missing, though. Namely, shoes, and socks for that matter. There didn't seem to be any about. Finally giving up in disgust he left the room barefooted._

_Feeling __even more naked encased in these dapper clothes than when he was nude, he searched the palace more thoroughly. As he walked its halls he realized that nothing felt familiar about it. There was no tingle of recollection, no feeling of belonging. He looked down at his clothes. They were definitely not his style, whatever that happened to be. This wasn't his home._

_He let his hand glide over the gilded back of an ornate chair a__nd sighed. Who was he, then? He went back to the empty ballroom and looked for a long time at himself in a mirror. He was a tall man, thin and angular. His skin was pale as parchment; his hair, black as coal. His face was framed by shoulder-length curtains of shiny, oily hair. From its midst a prominent aquiline nose thrust out. He fingered it for a moment before, with a decisive gesture, brushed the hair away from his face. Two black eyes returned his gaze, blank as his memory, empty as his identity. There were no answers in them. He examined his hands. His fingers were long and delicate. The hands of an artist, or a scholar mayhap? But that wasn't enough. He took off his tunic and kneaded his arms and chest. They weren't muscular but there was a wiry strength in his arms, a hardness to his chest beneath the thick mat of black hairs that covered it._

_He put his clothes back on. __He was a nameless man in an empty palace. Empty and yet well tended. He turned around in a circle. "Who are you? Show yourselves." he shouted. The utter silence of the house mocked him. Angry, he paced in front of the mirror. "Well, I claim this place. Might as well, since, no one else is here to do it. By right of conquest if that beast was your master, and by the undisputed right of necessity, since I have no other place to be in," he laughed bitterly. "What say you, will the invisible servants serve the nameless stranger? It would be fitting, wouldn't it?"_

_T__he air stirred in a soft whisper. No other reply could be heard. Silence, once more, claimed the edifice. The nameless man left the ballroom. Returning to the Master's bedroom, he took off his clothes and lay beneath the covers in the soft bed. Sleep did not come easily to him. He felt rudderless and without hope. What was his challenge just now but empty defiance? He had no aim and he had no name. Without them his life would be utterly meaningless. Disconsolately, he fell asleep._

Sarah put the book down. This wasn't how the story was supposed to go. Poor gentle Beast was dead and in his place an interloper now lived in Beast's lovely castle. Though, he did remind her of the Beast a little. Maybe he belonged in a Beauty and the Beast tale. Not that that justified what he did. More importantly, she was captivated. She wanted to know what happened to the nameless man who must be the heartbroken prince from before. He sounded so hopeless near the end. He's killed Beast, but on the other hand… he didn't know the Beast was harmless. The Beast was very frightful looking. It took Belle ages to accept him. Sarah pursed her lips.

The problem was, there was nothing there after he fell asleep. The pages after the last line were blank. It was almost as if the book was waiting for something.

"Sarah Miller! Are you hiding up there? Come down, you have to wash up before dinner." Her mother called from the door.

Sarah almost yelped but managed to keep her silence.

"I know you're up there. I'm giving you five minutes before I bring the ladder."

It was an empty threat. Mum almost never brought the ladder but Sarah didn't want to test her. It would ruin her secret place to have mum moving the branches and letting the sun in. She looked back at the book and bit her lip. What to do? A certain idea was brewing in her mind and she decided to go with it. She pulled the Bag of Treasures to her. The Bag of Treasures was her old schoolbag where she kept her secret tree-treasures. Fishing her purple pen from it she hanged the bag back in its place and chewed on her pen thoughtfully. In the Beauty and the Beast story she knew, there was this good fairy who would scold Belle in her dreams for her foolishness and tell her what she should do. She liked that fairy. Without her there would have been no happy ending. She started writing.

_The good Fairy Treesong appeared in his dreams. __She was a stout little fairy gowned in a majestic dress of leaves and acorns from the wise oaks of eld._

_The fairy spoke to the man. "You have acted in a beastly manner toward the gentle Beast, nameless one. Therefore I name you Beast. Like Adam you have woken in a Garden of Eden and sinned there dreadfully. Therefore I name you Adam. Henceforth you will be Adam Beast." _

_The fairy has spoken and it was so._

_Treesong stared sternly at Adam Beast. "The Beast whom you have killed was set a task. His palace and its servants were cursed along with him until he fulfilled that task. Therefore, if you wish to find happiness, if you wish to be accepted as the rightful owner of this palace, you must complete that task in his stead. The task is this. You must find a woman who will love you and wed you willingly. No coercion can you use. No trickery. If you do not fulfil this task, in the end your fate will be the same as that of the Beast you so ignorantly slew._

_Treesong left Adam Beast to his rest and flew to the garden. On the Beast's grave she planted forget-me-nots. Summoning his spirit, she blessed it with the name Gentle Love._


	3. Chapter 2  Self Examination

Chapter Two – Self Examination

"So, you coming?" Millie asked

"Erm… I don't know. Where are we going?" Sarah asked, stalling.

"The stream. Jeremiah's got fish and chips."

"Tired of the 'haunted' house?" Sarah needled her.

"Stop being so contrary." Millie admonished her in her usual soft almost-whisper. "Everyone knows the house is haunted. No one can make themselves get past the fence. You know it's true. Jeremiah is the first that was brave enough to do it. He said he found something."

Millie's pretty face was full of excitement. Sarah almost sneered. "What about the 'bogeys'? They get in all the time. The rest of us are just cautious, like. The 'bogeys' might have knives and not be very friendly."

Millie took a deep breath. "They're bogeys. Of course they can get in. If you think you can get in anytime you like, prove it. We'll go get Jeremiah and you'll show the both of us how easy it is to do it. There won't be any… vagrants, bothering you now."

"I don't feel like. It's full of ash and smelly."

"You just don't want to admit it is haunted. Admit it!" Millie admonished her in her small little voice.

Sarah bristled. "That's it! I don't want to talk about the House anymore. I'm not coming. Tell Jeremiah I'm not interested."

"But Sarah–"

"I said no. I have better things to do." She wanted Millie to go away already. She was tired of her and Jeremiah ganging up on her. She wished she was by herself and up in her tree already. She was anxious to see if anything changed in the fairy tales book since last night.

"Why? What will you do?" Millie asked suspiciously.

"None of your business."

"Fine! We don't need you." Millie yelled in that high, shrill voice of hers, her face red.

Sarah started to regret what she said. She should have lied and said she needed to help her mother or maybe even go with them and look at Jeremiah's boring find. What would it cost her to pretend she believed the house was haunted like them? She didn't have any friends beside Millie and Jeremiah. She couldn't make them mad at her. The stupid house wasn't worth it. She'll come with Millie and everything will be all right again. She opened her mouth to say something, but it was too late. Millie was already walking away, her skirt shaking from her rapid steps and her back stiff.

Sarah sat on the curb and hugged herself. Well, she got what she wanted, time for herself. She wouldn't let Millie ruin it for her. She wasn't really sorry for what she said, right?

She climbed into her oak and pulled the Bag of Treasures to her. Opening it up, she started going through it and rearranging it again until she gradually calmed down. The coloured pens and pencils mum gave her went to the little pocket. Her collection of acorns and feathers went back to their respective boxes with a new one to each. The pencil drawing of her and Millie as wood fairies that Millie made for her last year went to the bottom of the bag. She'll forgive Millie later and patch things up, she promised herself. The Count of Monte Cristo was placed back in its place of honour in the Bag along with Little Women which she intended to read some time soon. Her beloved Moomin and Gerald Durrell books went in next. Alone in her lap, remained the fairy tales book.

She opened it. The rich golden hued velum pages looked even more splendid today. There were no gaps from where yesterday the pages fell out. It really was magical. Turning the pages she discovered her hopes came true. On the page following her jotted additions the text continued.

**A**_dam Beast woke the next morning feeling subdued. As he quietly performed his morning ablutions, as he dressed without fuss in a colourful garb, as he woodenly ate from the sumptuous meal that awaited him in a silent dining hall and still, as he aimlessly walked the paths of the lovely gardens, the words of the fairy Treesong wouldn't stop playing in his mind._

_Why had he killed that ugly beast? Why did he let his stupid gut guide him into folly when a little forethought would have served him so much better? Hadn't he seen the flower behind the Beast's ear? Hadn't he observed how gentle the Beast's demeanour had been, how unthreatening? Hadn't he noticed how placid all the birds and little animals of the garden were at its presence? The same animals who, witnessing his deed, fled and shunned him ever since? Not that those things had been easy to notice yesterday._

_The bottom line was__: he acted like a cornered rat because he was weak and naked but still, he had acted like a cornered rat. He had done a foul deed and now he was branded with a wretched name. He had done an ugly deed and now faced an oh, so ironically fitting, grim future._

_That __sanctimonious fairy didn't think much of him. She thought she needed to threaten him into acting like a gentleman. Oh, he wished she was there so he could throttle her. Coercion, Trickery! Such things were beneath him. He knew he would never sink that low. Finding love though, he felt bile rise in his throat. He was sure he would fail at that. Something in his past… somehow that directive tore open an old wound that he couldn't even remember now. Did he even want to? He wouldn't even try to fulfil this 'task'. The whole thing was one of those impossible tests constructed to humiliate you and show you you're worthless. He just knew it. He went back to his bed and lay there for the rest of the day in a high dudgeon._

_The days passed listlessly. Adam Beast made half hearted attempts to explore the palace and its grounds but soon tired of them. His purpose, to find faults in this place and ridicule them to his heart's content didn't give him great satisfaction. The palace was too bright and airy. No one could comfortably live in it. The countless frescoes of frolicking gods and goddesses on the walls and ceilings were a tad lifeless for his tastes and definitely too repetitive. The abundant use of gold and gilding everywhere was beyond ostentatious. And the garden was obviously unnatural. Flowers bloomed without regard to their divergent seasons; rot and disease were utterly absent. It was too perfect. Not a garden at all but a rosy dream-garden. Only fairy-magic could account for it. But… at the root of all his complaints there was, he soon realized, a snake of deepest envy. Envy that this ethereal beauty surrounding him on all sides would never be his. And this truth robbed his criticisms of their bite._

_Gradually, his__ thoughts returned to the fairy's words and the task she set for him. With such a magnificent palace at his disposal, surely it wouldn't be hard to entice some penniless peasant girl to his side? Compared to that Beast, his chances of accomplishing that were surely infinitely better. It would be a marriage of convenience of sorts, true. But the utter loneliness of this place was too oppressing to bear alone. Nothing broke the silence but the tap of his steps, the sigh of the wind, the beat of his heart. No one met his eyes but cold, inanimate paintings. No one acknowledged him. No human soul ventured into this place. The invisible servants ignored him. The animals shunned him. Even his memories were stripped from him. He needed human contact. And yet, he was drawn to this place, to its loveliness. A jill would solve his dilemma. She would fill the silences of this place, she would force the aloof servants to acknowledge him, she would appease the fairy and break the curse she snared him with, she would give him this palace. Maybe one day such a girl would even learn to love him. It wasn't that unlikely, was it? He was not a difficult man to get along with, he felt. He had his quirks and faults like any other man but he was not without virtues either. But could such virtues overcome an unhandsome visage?_

_He found himself __standing before the pond where he first washed himself clean. He bent on his knees at the edge of the pond and examined himself. Reflections did not lie. His brow tightened, his lips compressed. He did not like what he saw. His image in the clear waters of the pond showed him with crystal clarity just how ugly he was. He was thin as a scarecrow and beak-nosed like some vulture. He was greasy-haired and ghost-pale like some slimy chthonic abomination of the deep dark and his eyes! They were blank as an empty meadow and dark as wells. When he stared at them, the nothingness stared back. If the eyes were the aspaklairs to the soul, he was a man without a soul. His cruel, thin lips promised that no abomination was beyond them. His long, tapered fingers were eager, like snakes, to poison and destroy. He was a repulsive, ugly man. His eyes misted with tears and he turned his back on the sparkling pond. It was lies, all lies._

_To hell with it all, he thought. To hell with it. He started walking. Round the palace he went and down the avenue leading from its front gates to the forest beyond. As he passed beneath the branched, he began to shiver. Then he began to curse. He had reached the boundary of the enchantment. Beyond, a different world faced him. The forest was cold. Deep snow covered the ground and branched. A merciless wind howled around him, freezing him to his bones. The path became narrow and uneven. In the distance he could hear the wails of hungry beasts. He couldn't face this. He was clad in light, colourful clothes and his feet were bare. He had forgotten in the pleasant palace where there were no sharp rocks or harsh winds or coldness how unprepared he was for the bigger world._

_He could not escape. Not like this._

Sarah put the book down. What was wrong with Adam Beast? He wasn't making it easy for her to like him. He didn't like her. He said he wanted to throttle her! Sarah touched her throat. It was weird having a character in a book threaten you, even if it was only her alter ego being threatened. But, she consoled herself, Treesong was a powerful fairy and he couldn't do a thing to hurt her. Sarah humphed. He'll just have to face his troubles like a hero and not try to blame them on her. She'd done nothing wrong. He was simply too touchy. And morose. That was his problem, she decided. He was taking everything much too seriously. Well, she was sure everything will turn out well in the end. Pretty sure.

She wondered why his reflection in the pond looked so horrific. He didn't sound that bad last time. She didn't think so. It couldn't be his inner character or his past either. Neither of them was that horrible no matter how caustic he was right now. There was gentleness in him and his past was merely sad, not cruel. She couldn't make sense of it.

In any case his story was starting to grate on her. She held the book to her heart and whispered, "I wish that next time I open you the tale will be about someone else. How about Belle and her family? I'd like to read their story now."

She put the book back in the Bag and left her tree. She was going to look a dictionary and find out what the heck 'Sanctimonious' meant.

* * *

><p>Thanks for the reviews Heartmom88, Sonseeahray and especially Dopplegranger, I'm honored.<p>

Hope this latest installment doesn't hurt your image of Adam Beast. I'll give a reward (guest character appearance?) to the one who figures out what's the deal with the pond.

See you next week.


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